


Mystery Lady

by KtheG



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: DEBS AU, F/F, Slow-ish Burn?, comedy? I guess?, shelby's not as religiously repressed as she is in the show i guess? maybe/maybe not, why not write a fic based on one of the best lesbian comedy crime fighting movies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:41:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28352604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtheG/pseuds/KtheG
Summary: Shelby is a DEBS agent, Toni is a criminal mastermind. Shelby chooses to write her senior thesis on Toni.
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	Mystery Lady

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I love writing spy stuff, and this is like one of my most favorite comfort movies, I can basically quote it at this point. I hope you guys like this, it might be a little slow with updates cuz college and my dumbass is writing three other multi-chap fics. But that said, I have a pretty dedicated playlist for this fic which I won't share because it's early 2000's cringe. I have the whole thing planned, so hopefully it won't take me all year to finish it.

The DEBS academy looked like any normal mansion in Beverley Hills, but to anybody who knew its secret, the signs were obvious. An electric fence that had enough volts to kill a grown man, the secret entrances from underground, hell, even the helipad on the roof. Shelby was finishing her morning run just as the newspaper boy was riding by on his bike. She watched as the newspaper sailed through the air, seemingly headed for their porch, only to hit the forcefield and sizzle to a crisp. A sigh escaped Shelby; she was hoping to read today’s copy in case there was anything on notorious super thief Toni Shalifoe, the subject of her senior thesis. _Fucking boys, always throwing things without care. Just like they do everything else._ Shelby thought.

It wasn’t fair, really, to judge a newspaper boy by how he throws each issue, but these things were _important_ for research. Shelby had to stay up to date as much as possible, considering she only had seven months to write her thesis while working missions for the DEBS. As a senior, she was able to work in the field with other agencies, and as the star cadet, Shelby had some leeway with Miss Petrie and Mr. Phipps. She had managed to worm her way onto the investigation of Toni Shalifoe, and once she saw the psychological profile, she had been hooked. This woman was a work of art, the perfect combination of narcissist and indifferent with a little bit of anger management problems mixed in for good measure.

That was honestly probably what allowed her to succeed in a criminal world dominated by the worst of the worst.

Shelby didn’t want to admit that she would read Toni’s file more than once a week, and by choosing to write her thesis on the woman, Shelby could pass off any obsession as research, but she suspected that her teammates were starting to suspect something more was going on. At least, Shelby could tell that Fatin suspected something. The other agent had been dropping hints for weeks, but Shelby adamantly denied everything. After all, this was nothing other than wanting to know the enemy in order to take them down. Toni wasn’t special, and if Shelby was being honest, she couldn’t agree with the way Toni lived her life.

Sure, being gay wasn’t like, _a problem,_ for Shelby, but her father had drilled it into her head that being that way would be incredibly lonely, and for the life of her, Shelby couldn’t figure out why anybody would want to live that way.

(She knew. Shelby knew but she had spent so long avoiding it, admitting any sort of fascination other than for research purposes made Shelby practically break out in hives.)

So when Shelby had gotten the chance to surveil Toni on a clandestine meeting, she jumped. There were very few details about the meeting, only that it was taking place at one of the nicer restaurants in the city. When she walked into the conference room for a briefing on the meeting and the goals, she couldn’t help but let out a small groan when she noticed who else was there. Andrew, her ex from the Department of Homeland Security. They had broken up when he found out that Shelby was writing her thesis on Toni Shalifoe, confused as to why anybody would want to do such a deep analysis of a criminal.

Shelby had thought he would understand. He had dreams of taking down the biggest weapons cartels in the United States, but turns out she was wrong. Andrew had only reinforced the ideals of her father.

(“You shouldn’t be looking at someone like this Shelby, you could get seriously hurt. And besides, you were meant for greater things than taking down petty criminals. Go to law school! Use your skills for arguing to keep these people behind bars.”

“Andrew, nobody else has done such a thorough evaluation as I have. I’m the perfect person to take her down, and wouldn’t that be just as good?”)

The argument had gone in circles, neither wanting to admit defeat and submit, and finally, Shelby had had enough and she broke up with her high school sweetheart. So to walk into the briefing and see him sitting at the table. Well. Shelby was going to be professional, but no more.

He tried to get her attention, no doubt to ridicule her desire to take down Shalifoe once and for all. She avoided all of his attempts at eye contact, and she counted her blessings that he wouldn’t have the chance to ask her direct questions. Every time one of the senior agents, from any agency (the whole alphabet soup was here) asked Shelby a question about what her research had to say about what the meeting might be about, Shelby couldn’t help but gloat. She would smirk in Andrew’s direction and then give the most professional answer possible.

And when the meeting was over, and Shelby was leaving the room, she carefully evaded Andrew’s attempts to catch up with her. She knew the hallways of the DEBS mansion by heart (four years at a spy school would teach you how to lose even the closest tail) and she disappeared into thin air.

She checked her shoulder one last time before breaking out into a sprint towards the space she shared with her team. When she got there, Dot and Fatin were waiting, huge smiles on their faces. It was their “cat got the canary” smile, and so Shelby automatically pulled up, waiting for some inevitable prank to come falling from the doorframe (she had tripped too many lines tied to buckets of water to just charge into any room these days).

“Oh c’mon Shelbs, we know that you’ve been activated for the Shalifoe stakeout.” Dot said, Fatin raising her voice to not be left out.

“Yeah! We just wanted to say congratulations!” and with that, huge handfuls of the agencies most glittery confetti were thrown her way. It would get everywhere, and any attempts at shaking off the glitter wouldn’t work, so Shelby did the only logical thing: she walked right into the arms of the other two girls and gave them hugs full of glitter, determined to get them at least a little glittery.

“You guys, this is a huge waste of resources. A cake would’ve been fine,” she said, and under her breathe Shelby muttered, “preferred even.”

But she knew that it was a big deal to be activated for a case like this. Most senior cadets were only activated as their final exam, and for a brief second, Shelby’s mind jumped ahead of her and filled her thoughts with _oh shit what if this is my final exam?? I’m in no way prepared to pass right now!_

Before her mind could take her down into a spiral of spy-school anxiety, Dot grabbed her arm and pulled her further into their shared rooms. On the kitchen table, there was a small cake, and if Shelby knew her teammates (and she did, they had been together since first year) it would be a chocolate cake with a peanut butter buttercream. She couldn’t help but smile, genuinely, at the thought and care of her most destructive teammates.

They would do everything they could to keep Shelby above water, and sure, they weren’t the most obvious match, but the three of them were good together. Shelby only hoped that they could have a good year together, that her activation wouldn’t tear them apart like it had to other teams.

(Shelby had seen teams where the senior cadet had been activated and replaced, or where the activated agent cut off her teammates out of pride. She had sworn when they first were assigned to each other that nothing would tear them apart, and she intended to keep that promise.)

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you guys think! Comments feed my soul and I always love hearing what people have to say about my writing (blame my ego) but I also like to hear what you guys want to see. In a rare move, this fic hasn't been written to completion like some of my others, so some ideas from you guys could end up in the fic!


End file.
